What a whirlwind this second semester has been! We have been running with lots of different things in class, so this may be a random list of different ideas/things/etc....apologies for that now!
Genius Hour-this has been an awesome project that I have continued to implement in my room once a week. Students have been running with the Ollies, Spheros, Little Bits, and Makey Makey [see previous post about these fun gadgets]. I would LOVE to apply for a grant to receive more Makey Makeys, a drone or two, and especially a Lego Mindstorm programmable Lego Robot. High hopes! Just this past week I was contacted by someone with the Green Bellevue [recycling program]. April 24th at the LIED center, they are having several activities to celebrate Earth Day. They asked if any of my students would be interested in participating in the "Trashion Show". This is where students choose one of two categories to compete in....and create an outfit or costume made completely of recyclable materials. The groups have to have someone willing to model their creation on the runway and then one other person to serve as the spokesperson to explain to the judges and audience where they got their ideas, what they made their creation out of, etc. I have three different groups that are going to pause their current Genius Hour project and do this for the next 3 weeks. I am eager to see what the students can come up with! [hopefully they all follow through!] Side note...one of my students from last year [see post about Donnie] that ran a book drive for his project was awarded the Daughters of the American Revolution Citizenship award because of his Genius Hour project. I am SO proud of Donnie!
NETA is coming up in a couple of weeks and I am blessed enough to be able to attend for another year. I can't wait to hear some of the exciting new things teachers are trying and doing in their classroom. It is always INFORMATION OVERLOAD, but in the end, we come away with so many ideas and connect with so many people....what an amazing experience....CANNOT WAIT!
iPad Academy just met yesterday for our last meeting of the school year. I am so grateful our district has these collab/creation days for members in our district that have a 1:1 iPad room. An "Apple guy" came to speak with us yesterday about some VERY exciting updates included in 9.3....some revolve around more control for the teacher. I will hopefully soon be able to: see the live screens of all students in my classroom, can "freeze them" into an app, freeze their iPad entirely [great for when I need to give a last second direction, etc], and I can also send them all to the same place from my iPad if I need them to go to a specific URL or app. This is called CLASSROOM [not to be confused with the app Google Classroom]. I just need my iPads updated and enrolled in JAMF....and then I will give a try! We also had Lisa from Norfolk @ilisapack talk to us about "Power Slides" click HERE for video. She also talked to us about DoInk/Green Screen ideas. My class uses this often [AND LOVE IT], but we are eager to try out the Power Slides as something easy and new!
Wizer.me Heather Callihan (@hcallihan) from Grand Island sent me a link for a program that allows you to create lessons [very similar to NearPod] and shoot them straight to students via LINK or GOOGLE CLASSROOM! It has multiple choice, fill in blank, open ended questions, label the picture, watch a video, and more. They are adding features often....I created a few and look forward to trying them out with my students as we use Google Classroom often for work flow.
As my brain allows me to process, I will add more goodies as they come up. Has anyone used programmable drones or robots in their classroom? Personally? What are the pros and cons? What do I need to consider if I purchase them? Thanks for any comments!
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